← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
#147 - From Customer to Owner: The Journey into Business Acquisition and Ownership
00:36:30
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- [00:00]
Rory Tyre
I'm passionate about entrepreneurship through acquisition because so far it has been like a huge net positive for me. As soon as they heard that I didn't have any experience, they were just like, nope, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Something will raise the flag. It'll either be like, if this is true, this is a unique business, or something about this unique, I really like this. Or that doesn't quite sound right. Like that doesn't fit.
- [00:28]
Sagan
Recently we've been buying off Supply House and we've been able to get plumbing, H VAC and electrical stuff off there. And my biggest concern was timeliness. Like, hey, if I need this thing pretty quick, can I get it? And you for sure can. So that was awesome. So deliveries are fast, they ship coast to coast and you can call them and you can get expert support with real people, which is awesome. So check out supplyhouse.com for buying the stuff you need.
- [00:56]
John
Welcome back to Owned and operated. John is out gallivanting around. I think it's Ireland this week, which is awesome. I've heard it's really beautiful out there and I'm sure he's having a great time. So we have an amazing guest here today. We have Rory. Tire tired. I say that right?
- [01:16]
Rory Tyre
Yep.
- [01:17]
John
Awesome. How are you doing, Rory?
- [01:20]
Rory Tyre
I'm doing really well. I'm in a hotel in Cleveland actually right now at a trade show.
- [01:25]
John
Very cool.
- [01:26]
Rory Tyre
So.
- [01:27]
John
So Rory owns a nursery out in South Carolina that you purchased how long ago?
- [01:35]
Rory Tyre
May 7th was the date.
- [01:37]
John
May 7th. So you're, you're fairly new, but tell it, tell us a little bit about that acquisition. So what, what is it? Per. What does it entail?
- [01:46]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, great question. So it's a. It's an IGC independent garden center and the former owner was just ready to retire. So I've been kind of searching on a very part time basis while working full time remotely for, I mean, probably two years or more. Before I started talking with him. We had moved to Greenville 2021. We've been buying plants from the nursery. I really liked it. I had looked at a bunch of different broker deals and a few other things and got kind of, I don't know, disenchanted with the brokered deal process. Either the valuation expectations I felt like were not reasonable or it was a good business and therefore was going to become like a competitive bidding process. And I just did not find in myself that I wanted to be part of that. And so I ended up building a bunch of lists of local businesses that I just thought seemed interesting. And I really wanted something local, like within the 30 minute radius of my house because I had been doing a good bit of traveling for my job and I've got three young girls and just didn't want to keep doing that. And so. And we love Greenville so that we weren't about to relocate for a business. And. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know what I mean. One day we went to the nursery and bought some plants and I just was thinking like, that seems like a great business. Let me email the owner and see if I can at least ask him some questions about what it's like to run this. Because it's not an industry I have ever worked with and know anything about. And the first time I got him on the phone, I was just asking him some questions and he was sort of like, why do you want to know this stuff? And so I just laid it out. I was like, well, I'm looking for a business owner that wants to retire because I like to own a business. I don't know if a nursery is something I want to own, but if you are at all interested in that and you think you're at or near retiring, I'd love to ask you some more questions and talk about that. And he was open to it. And so pretty quickly from that point we started having a bunch of conversations. This was in the summer of last year and I think so between about August and then we signed Loi at the end of December. And so it went pretty slowly for a number of reasons, which I'm happy to talk about. But then we closed at the beginning of May.
- [03:51]
John
That's amazing. I mean, I think that's, I think that's passed over by so many searchers now. Today is just the idea that, hey, I need to go pound pavement and walk and talk and network in, in the community I'm in or the community I want to be in. And everyone just goes straight for brokers, brokers, brokers, brokers. But those deals end up being very, you know, they're very expensive. You're paying a lot for what, what you actually get. And they're, they're difficult, they're, they're highly contested and lots of, lots of competition. What, what industries were you looking at prior to going down into this specific one? Was there anything that you were targeting? Like, so I was talking to someone yesterday about it and I said, man, I used to look at the most random things and yeah, and now I'm an H Vac. But like, did you have a genre of Businesses you were looking in or, or, or what was the sequence?
- [04:49]
Rory Tyre
I mean, I was working at a large professional services and accounting firm and for a time I thought about starting my own consulting firm. I looked into buying accounting firms. I had a conversation early on with Patrick Dichter, who a lot of people know from social media about what could go into buying a firm. And I mean, honestly, in like brick and mortar retail, I would have told you is one of like a few things along with like restaurants and maybe something else that I did not want.
- [05:15]
John
Yeah.
- [05:17]
Rory Tyre
You know, I, and, and, and looking back now, I think I just had this perception that either they're getting crushed by E Commerce or if they're not getting crushed, they've just got razors and it's a headache to staff. And you know, with the nursery, I think there's some, with a garden center, I think there's some uniqueness where, you know, the, the most likely person to crush you is going to be like a garden center at a big box store like Lowe's or Home Depot. But what I've discovered and what I've realized is part that drew me to this nursery in the first place is they're not really competing with them. We're not really competing with them. Like we, we're aiming at a little more of a high end experience that doubles down on variety and service and quality. And so I mean, I looked at, I mean I looked at a. There was this guy who was basically a consultant working with nursing homes and helping them like fill vacancies and get more financially healthy. And he had developed kind of the beginnings of like a productized zoom course that he would take cohorts of staff through. I looked at a company that was basically a design firm for big wooden trusses. Trusses and structures. I looked at plumbing companies, I looked at a brand brokerage licensing company where they would connect products with people they wanted to license their product or vice versa. I mean, just a lot of different. I took out to lunch the owner of a really niche construction company in Greenville that I, he was like, did underwater construction. I was like, I don't know how much more unique. Like this is not just some random general contractor. Like there's something going on here that is really unique. And so yeah, I was, you know, I was all over the map because for me it was honestly a little bit of like, who talked to me like I'm willing to learn just about anything. And in my career, the firm I was working for was called porn. It was a very large CP firm and I was doing a lot of consulting and coaching with business owners. So I think when you do proprietary outreach, like, I think what stops a lot of people is, is either they're just not comfortable with cold calling if you don't have sales experience, or in my case, I was comfortable sitting across the table from a business owner and having to come across like I understood way more about them and their business than I probably did. And you figure out real quick the way to do that is just to ask good questions and they'll tell you what matters to them, what's important, you know, and then if you're able to remember that stuff and connect some dots and repeat it back to them, you can become a trusted partner. And so I just leverage some of that when having these business owner conversations. Like, I know, I know what pressures they're facing because I'm in the trenches with them, dealing with mostly on the people side, but obviously you get exposure to lots of other things too. So. Yeah, that's a long way to answer. I was open to anything. You know, I've heard people say, do you feel like. Because I knew I wanted to stay in Greenville, I was like, I've got to be open and you know, that means I'm going to have to learn. And you know, I think that's a.
- [08:12]
John
Really accurate thing to say though, is. Is a lot of people try to find industry and location and it's so much harder than being agnostic in one of those two. Right. So industry but anywhere or loca location but anything. And it sounds like you kind of hit that. And with that though, I mean, we talk a lot about kind of going through the motions and not that I wanted to waste brokers times, but do you feel like that kind of outreach and talking about business models and seeing P Ls and working, trying to work towards a purchase through other industries helped you in the industry you ended up buying in?
- [08:50]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, I do. I mean even just getting to read sims and then over time you start to develop a sense for like something will raise the flag. It'll either be like, oh, this, if this is true, this is a unique business or something about this unique. I really like this. Or that doesn't quite sound right. Like that doesn't fit. There's some pattern recognition that you start to develop. I think just like there's a way to get confident talking to business owners. Business brokers, the ones that, that are good and know what they're doing. I mean their, their job is to. Is to have an appropriate firewall between you and the owner because they don't want to waste the owner's time. And so learning how to represent yourself and learning how to overcome, like, very common objections like, oh, you don't have industry experience, or, oh, you're not, you know, you're just an independent person. You're not backed by some fund or you don't already own a company. You've never owned a company before aside from, you know, so, because I was.
- [09:44]
John
Taught, I had this, like I said I was having. I was having this conversation yesterday, actually, and it was a new searcher who's getting out there and, you know, he's getting his MBA and he's kind of going through the motions and he's like, I want to buy. And I said, you know, one of the hardest things that you need to start trying to figure out how to overcome is the broker objection or the objection from the bank that says, you don't have industry experience. Why should we trust you? Why are you. Where's your ethos behind this? And so, like, was there anything special that you did to create the website with the searcher? And like the goat looking over the mountaintop with the sunrise in the background says, we have capital. You know, like, all the silly things I always see. Was there anything kind of that you did in that realm to help legitimize yourself? Like, I'm not wasting anyone's time. I really do want to buy.
- [10:34]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, no, honestly, I mean, and I, you know, part of the. I was searching while working full time. And so I, I didn't want to broadcast so publicly, like, and have a website with like, my face and stuff on it. So, like, I made a website in a domain, but initially I had this. I thought I was going to start writing a bunch of blog articles, like, about stuff related to business succession and transition and kind of both from a buyer and a seller perspective. And I had this content plan in my mind and like, it never panned out. I mean, it was really inconsistent. I just sort of. So, no, I mean, I think the times that it worked, I was able to talk about the consulting and coaching work I had done. So I was able to say here, here are examples of the ways that I currently work with business owners. And what I have realized is that this has given me a really valuable insider perspective on the kinds of things that I would need to deal with if it were my business and if it were my team having these challenges. And so as a result, I have a ton of not so formally Playbooks, but just like tools and perspectives and there's stuff that could happen that wouldn't necessarily catch me off guard because I've seen it before. And so in my case, I leaned into that of like, hey, I have conversations with business owners all the time. Here's some of the results that I've gotten for them and their teams. And I've just realized I would love the chance to do this with my own business. And then I think it is helpful if you can share something that you have learned about the industry. Like you're, you're not asking questions that some Googling could have answered for you, but you're clearly building on some knowledge base. So the formula is something like. So I understand that blank is typically a challenge. Like, what has that been like for you? Over 12 months, you know, I think. And so like in the construction industry, like I did a lot of consulting with commercial construction companies. For them, it's, it's workforce shortage and it's like we just cannot find people. So you bring that up and ask about how's hiring been? Or like, how's retention or like whatever, and you're going to get an earful in response and immediately built some like, oh, this guy gets it. This is, this is a very relevant problem. And you just gotta find. Yep. Baseline knowledge. Like if you are aware that it's a business that depends on a commodity in some way for its input and you know that that price has been really high, that's like easily locatable information. And you should be able to ask like, you know it. Look, you know, I know this. The price of wood has gone up a lot over the past. Whatever. How have you been able to pass on that? How's that affected your margins? Just those kinds of like category questions can. And I would kind of tell. Sometimes I would tell, this is reminding me. I would, I would try to model for the broker exactly how I planned to communicate with the seller. So I would say, I would love to get a chance to ask questions about this or to ask a question like this so that they could kind of. It was almost a role play for the sake of the, like, this is what it's going to be like to put me in conversation with your seller. I promise it's not going to be a waste of time. And that didn't always work. A few times it didn't work. It was because they, they mandated you have a certain amount of liquid funds before they would even open the G. And they weren't interested in you saying, well, I know a ton of people who invest. And I know this, I mean they just, they just didn't want, I mean that's a choice they can make. So. And then sometimes I just didn't. I mean there were a few off market people where I got through on the phone and as soon as they heard that I didn't have any experience, they were just like, no, I don't want to talk to you anymore. And I mean, you know, in those situations my thought was that's not really a me problem, it's a pipeline problem. I need to be finding enough potential opportunities that like some percentage of them will result in conversations and some percentage of those might go further. You know, like any, any kind of marketing or sales funnel. Like you have to go back to the top and figure out how to make that top bigger.
- [14:10]
John
I'm, I mean that's all absolutely amazing advice to be honest. We, like I said, I had this conversation yesterday and these are the questions that come up and these are the hey, as a journey, as a searcher and as in someone who's potentially buying a business, how do you get past the, you know, the, the guard, the broker guard that they put up and how do you show that you are a serious buyer? Because they get hundred hundreds of tire kickers. So very interesting. Awesome. So you bought a. So what's the difference between a nursery and in garden center?
- [14:45]
Rory Tyre
A garden center? Yeah, great question there. I mean functionally. Well, I, I think historically a nursery is a place where plants are like grown and so a lot of garden centers do have growing operation which is a very, it's just a different business model, different risks, different capex needs, different inputs, different level of knowledge needed for, for your team. We are only a, like a retail operation. So we buy and resell, you know, buy it wholesale, sell it retail. And so I think garden center is typically kind of a broader term where you get tools, fertilizers, soils, gifts, often, you know, statues, pottery and plants. And that describes us. I don't know. I think at some point back in the day the business was called South Pleasantburg Nursery and Garden center. And at some point it just got shortened, South Pleasantburg Nursery. And at this point I'm like, you know, we have a decent Google profile and reviews. Like I'm just not interested in messing with it.
- [15:41]
John
Yeah, of course.
- [15:43]
Rory Tyre
But I am. One of the things I am doing is going through a rebranding right now. And you know, it was important to me to have a very, very clear like visual mark that was separate. Right. So that eventually in the future it want to change something about that. You know, that basic visual brand would be able to stay the same. But yeah, there's, I think a lot of people. The word nursery is a place where babies get looked after, right? It's where I took my kids when my wife went back, went back to work after having them. So yeah, I think, I don't know that in a lot of people's minds there's much of a differ that growing aspect. What we don't do.
- [16:17]
John
Okay, so there's no, no growing. You're buying wholesale and then you're reselling it. Who's the, who's the market customer? So most of the business I've looked at that are in this field that have been full blown nurseries and the interest there for me at least the, the, the benefit was right, you grow for six months out of the year. They're generally growing some kind of specific product like mums or something and they sell it all in a seasonality type of play, almost like any kind of crop. And then you spend the rest of the year like skiing in Vail and riding off into the sunset. Though I'm sure it's, it's actually more of a oh crap, we don't have money now type of problem. That being said, kind of that that business model is, is very simple, right? You, you grow it, then you sell to yourself. Who are you selling to? Are you selling to landscape architects? Are you selling B2B to, you know, landscape groups? Or, or is it all retail customers? Mom, Pop, Wanda?
- [17:21]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, vast majority, vast majority is retail customers we do get. And so I would say like mid to higher end, you know, homeowners and people that just want, you know, like you think of somebody who is living in an apartment, right? Like you wouldn't consider them like they're not a homeowner, they're renting. And a lot of cases we wouldn't consider them necessarily a higher end depending on their income and state of the apartment. But like they really like plants as a hobby. And so I would say anybody that's a hobbyist that likes plants, but residential customers. And then a quirk of this business is because of where we're located, it's really convenient for a lot of companies to just come by plants there at retail and presumably to their customers. So there's a company that does flower beds and containers that they'll come and buy flowers pretty frequently. There's several landscape companies that I know on site. I'll see their trucks or I know the dude that has his, he's got like a one crew operation. And that's just the fact, you know, in retail, in person, retail, your location is so important. And for us, we are the only nursery of any scale that's actually within the city limits of Greenville. And so it's a really easy jumping off point because a lot of the people that you want to work with are in or right around Greenville. And there's another, there's a couple other great nurseries outside the city limits in a couple different directions. But you have to kind of go out of your way to go there. If you're near the part of the city where we are.
- [18:52]
John
Was that, was that a surprise to you or was that a deciding factor when you chose that business? Yeah, like, right. Brick and mortar, they say location, location, location, like that's everything. And so. But at the same time, the, the nicheness of the business kind of would drive some people to your location versus the location itself. But surprisingly, it was more important than you thought.
- [19:17]
Sagan
I will be the first one to be hesitant about remote staffing agencies, but honestly, Sagan's been pretty great. We started working with Sagan a few months ago to place a few more complicated positions inside accounting and hr. They had great candidates in a week and we were able to make our hires in under two and a half weeks, which was awesome. Both of those candidates have now started and they've been awesome members of the team. So we're super grateful. Make sure you talk to Sagan. If you're interested in learning more, go to sagango.coms a g a n g o dot com.
- [19:50]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, I think, you know, we, we also are known locally for have, I think like a really big selection, a lot of variety. And that's a double edged sword because that means at any given point you have a lot of cash tied up in your inventory. And that's some of our ongoing, some of the, some of the biggest learning curve for me has been around like at a philosophical level, how do you buy? Because I've got buyers that have been doing this for a long time and some of their philosophies are great, some of their gut feel, intuition is great. And some of it is not as data driven as I think we could be. And it was only in January, actually during, while we were under Loi, the former owner transitioned to a new point of sales and inventory management system. And so for the first time, I would say we have like very reliable and easily accessible data to help make purchasing decisions. And so there's A whole change management process around, like, how do we now use that data to buy rather than just having it be something that's there, but that we don't. We don't. And of course, not all, you know, data is never hung. So that raises a challenge once in a while. But, like, I, I think I was surprised. I was surprised that, you know, as an example, I, I thought they had like a commercial discount over because a lot of nurseries will have, like, hey, if you're a commercial person, you set up an account and you get some kind of a discount off retail. And they used to have one, and when Covid hit, they discontinued it because, you know, they were like, we don't know where. You know, they assumed they were going to. Everything's going to fall off a cliff. Of course, 2020 and then 20 was a huge boon in the outdoor living world, like, in general. And so then they just didn't bring the discount back. They just said, we don't have a need to bring it back. The brand is not known locally for. In fact, I did a clearance event a few weeks ago just because I inherited a way more inventory than we need. And I was like, I would like to have an infusion of cash in a season where we don't normally get that infusion because this was at the end of August, which is normally extremely slow. And it was the first clearance event the business had to end. Like, I didn't fully even appreciate that. But it's such a brand marker. Like, hey, you're a premium brand. We're not known for sales, we're not known for discounts. That was a big surprise. Like, I didn't, I kind of sensed it, but I didn't fully understand how important that has been to the margins and that the business has been able to command.
- [22:07]
John
Yeah, I mean, there's so much to unpack there. So I'm, I'm thinking I'm not going to touch this point, but, like, even the fact that the, the goods themselves are perishable, like having so much cash flow locked up into a perishable good that's, I mean, essentially fickle to some extent. Right. They could die. The heat wave, disease. Like, there's so much that could go, yeah, happen. Which I'm sure you're Hailstorm, but yes. In terms of what I want to touch on is more so seasonality is this biz. I would assume there's some seasonality to the business, but do you see.
- [22:39]
Rory Tyre
Yes.
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John
Winter peaks, summer peaks, what does that look like?
- [22:43]
Rory Tyre
If I remember Correctly, I think it's like 70% of our revenue comes in between, like, the end of March and Independence Day. And then you're very. You're pretty dead. Over the summer, we have some interesting aspects of, like, we sell actually a good number of fountains, and we also have a bunch of, like, water gardening stuff. So water plants. We sell koi fish, you know, pond health and construction supply. So there's stuff that actually during the summer, people are thinking about because the water feature is like, a really nice relief. And then there's another bump in revenue in the fall, which we're kind of just getting into now. So after Labor Day, and then that lasts until kind of up till Thanksgiving, like mid November, before Thanksgiving. And we do some. Historically, the business has not done a whole lot of seasonal stuff because there's another business in town. It's another garden center that is a lot more of a gift shop. And they have like a. They have like a permanent Christmas, you know, and so they. Yeah, they go like all out on the decorations. And the owner historically has just said that there's me to try to invest in more, but we'll do like, and some wreaths and some things. And then so really after Thanksgiving until end of March, it's like fairly, fairly dead.
- [23:58]
John
Yeah. Because I could see Christmas being, you know, a boom with the Christmas tree and then the garden set of products that would come from that. So we talked about it a little bit offline. So one of my favorite parts of this show is right as people initially bought businesses, we've asked them, John, in the initial shows, asked them questions, and then three years later, circle back, see where they are, how they're doing, and ask them kind of similar questions that. Did it work? What did you expect? What didn't you expect? And it's really fun to see the kind of vast differences. So as you've owned the business four or five months now, right, you have some big rocks up ahead. What do you see as, like, the next big step that you're going to take in this business to get it to the next level, Assuming that you want to grow, that this isn't a lifestyle business.
- [24:53]
Rory Tyre
One thing is we brought. We launched landscape design and installation. And so previously we had team members that would do that stuff kind of their own time. And a few of those folks are working like a ton of hours. So what it meant is they just got vertical time. And so it's a comment to me being like, hey, if we brought this in, and like, their prices were kind of low and I said, I think we need to raise these prices and if you're part of our brand, and that gives us a lot of justification to charge medium price, you'll get some of your personal time back. I see like a better career path and I think we can, you know, my, my kind of mental models around how I think a customer journey should look. And even like when you communicate things like price and scope to somebody, what should that proposal look like? Like in B2B sales, we're used to putting, you know, almost too much thought into like, what is the PDF that we send over that walks through the project. And I'm like, if I put even a little bit of that thought into something that's templated in Canva, which is what we do now, and it's around a landscape design. Like, I mean, I think that will probably go to a lot of other people who are, who are smaller shops operating the space, that level of thought into what the customer is getting. So that's one thing is I see growing, growing design and installation pretty significantly. I think there are some price. Not necessarily. I mean, some price increases probably especially in the spring, but mostly implementing some kind of trade, variable pricing as an example. So you have a perennial at a certain size and it's like, hey, if you buy three or more, there's this price point. Well, if you only buy one, there's this price point which is like one or two dollars higher. And so you're actually subconsciously encouraging people to buy more, which improves your turns, you know, makes it. And it makes people like they spent less money. Oh, great. I got three. And I didn't have to get them for that price. I got them for the slower price. Well then as long as you're protecting your margins on that lower price you're giving them, you know, it's kind of like a win win. And so that is a little bit complicated. Involves a lot of adjusting things and retag tagging and creating some new signage to make sure that's not confusing for the consumer. But that definitely needs to happen. And then. Okay, so then, so that's like the relative term if I. Yeah.
- [27:11]
John
What about marketing? Like, so is it.
- [27:14]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, so that's also happening because I.
- [27:16]
John
Can'T, I can't imagine, you know, the, A lot of the, like the, the old timer. We've done it this way for 40 years. I can't imagine they're, they're use. Utilizing new marketing techniques. Driving reviews.
- [27:28]
Rory Tyre
No, no, no, no.
- [27:29]
John
So what, what for you. What. Where are you driving that kind of.
- [27:32]
Rory Tyre
Business when we the new point of sales inventory system is also manages like maintains customer data a lot better than their previous system did. And so I've retrained all of my anybody that runs the register to like always ask for phone number, you know name phone number and email address as well. And then you know we that's connected to mailchimp. So I launched an email newsletter which we'd never had before. And I also launched a like a membership program called called SP Club. And I'm experimenting with like I'm not giving discounts necessarily as part of the program which you know a lot of stores like hey if you're in the Club you get 10 off or whatever. We, we may do some special occasion discounts for some things but the main draw for that has been hey if you're in the SP club within 24 hours of us getting a new shipment of plants you'll get an email and a text alert with some pictures and some information about what we got. And so you will know like if we get stuff on a Tuesday you don't have to wait until Saturday or like call the store and see hey, what have you gotten? People do get a coupon on their birthday that's automated through mailchimp and through the system. And like you know we have a family festival we're doing. So it's another marketing is I'm doing an event on October 5th with like some like a petting zoo and some stuff for kids and families because one of the biggest demographics in Greenville is young families and the nursery has not historically tried to lean into that. And there's a ton of stuff you can do there with classes with creative back activities on site for kids to spend their time doing with these kinds of events. And so that that is part of the marketing plan is to try to do more events and I would say the yeah the newsletter and then I've got a couple local brand partnerships like my daughter's elementary school we did, we sponsored the pta. So we've got a banner hanging up in the ball field and another local school I've like have a banner in their drive through line and we'll probably try to do some more of those just to get it because I run into people all the time the nursery's been here. Next year will be the 60th anniversary of it being Greenville and I still run into people all the time who are like not new here but they didn't know about us. And so that's part of my thesis for the Business was okay. You know, post Covid, this industry did really well. The economy's shifting. Like, I think we may have to fight for our revenue a little more the next five years than they did the last five. But I.1 of those tools is doing any marketing at all. Like, you know, doing any newsletters at all, doing any local partnership. Yeah, you know, like doing any. And so, yeah, so that's some of the marketing stuff that we're doing right now. So when I think about changes and growth, I think in terms of like, what are we doing right now, what do I see for the spring? And then there's like a two year cliff. So the two year thing that's coming is I've got several team members who are at or near retirement age and some of them are some of the like, harder worker, more knowledgeable team members. And so, you know, in some ways I think some of our harder times are potentially in front of us because I've got this Runway that hopefully is a couple of years, but you never know, right. Personal circumstances or health or whatever could change. But I've got that Runway to try and document as much as I can and implement just some more standardization around roles and responsibilities and training. Because it was very informal, there's really no formal staff structure that I inherited. Then the 5 to 10 year thing is like, I think the trend for in person retail garden centers is to be more of an experience. So give people more reasons to come, more reasons to stay so that you can do a better job of increasing average order value and sending people home with more stuff. And so you want to become more like a destination that people like to meander and have events and classes accordingly. And that requires a lot of infrastructure investment. The building that I have right now is almost, I mean it's extremely old, I mean like almost 60 years old. So like I can't really change anything without suddenly tripping a ton of local building codes that I'm all of a sudden responsible for. Like we own one bathroom and like an eight acre property. And like so this, for this event that we're about to do, in fact I need to do this. I got to go like rent, reserve a couple porta potties just to make sure because people are going to be hanging out longer. But like the five to ten year vision, I'd like to pay down my loans at least the 7A loan much faster than the 10 year amortization. If I could do it in 5, that'd be incredible. But eventually, someday, what really should happen is the Building should be raised and we should rebuild on a different part of the property that's a little bit more removed from. There's a flood zone so that we can then have the building in one section and all of the parking and the entrance in one particular spot. Because, you know, traffic, foot traffic flow is super important to, you know, shrinkage control and customer experience. And right now it's a little bit of like a choose your own adventure when you come onto the property. And some of that is the charm. Like if you want to come get out of your car and like you don't want to talk to anybody, you just want to come park and get out and go walk like you're in a park, you can do that. And it's, you know, whether people we dismiss you or we're busy, like you may not even get greeted and you know, until you walk by a certain place. And that's really not great for, you know, for sales and for customer experience. And so that's the bigger picture. The other aspect of that that's interesting is Greenville has this really amazing system of trails in Greenway called the Swamp Rabbit Trail. And there is an expansion plan to bring the trail along the section of the Reedy river that borders our property. And I had a conversation a couple weeks after closing with a guy from the city and I was just like, I want you to know I am all in on this, like if you guys can find the political will and get buy in from the other landowners path to do it, I am all in. Like we'll figure it out. And if we did that, it would create the opportunity for a much more like serving walk up customers kind of business model, probably with food and drink and maybe some entertainment and like there's examples of other very successful businesses along that trail that, that, that have done that. And so that's kind of the. I like to dream about what that could look like, you know, so that's like further, further out. I think the, the path to get there is just to double down on the selection and the service that we're known for and just make sure that there's nobody in Greenville. Like it's. The population's grown so much, it's projected to continue to grow, which is a great tailwind to have for in person retail. But you just have to double down on that loyal, fanatical core of people that do want to get that text every single time you get plants. And then just making sure that like anytime you're doing anything that everybody who can possibly hear about it, hears about it, it. And through newsletter and through ads and stuff like that. And so we're just at the beginning of that, I would say, and we've seen positive results. I mean, I sent out that SP Club thing and within a week I think I had like 100 people sign up. And we've grown our newsletter a lot since pushing for it and. But there's just all kinds of little things like, oh yeah, I need signs in the store with QR codes to get people to sign up and like someone's got to make those. And that's, that's going to be me.
- [34:36]
John
Exactly.
- [34:36]
Rory Tyre
I've got to do that.
- [34:38]
John
Very cool. I mean, I think that's, you're on the right track. I mean the, the young business owner, brand new energy is real. I love it, but very cool. I, I agree with your thesis. I think that that's the move for a lot of in, in store retail is to become an experiential kind of move. Very cool. So, so Rory, as you go on your journey, where can people find you? Follow along. See these newsletters. What's, what's the spot?
- [35:08]
Rory Tyre
Yeah, well, we're revamping our website. So I would say you can go to the website and sign up for the newsletter. It's not, it's not quite there yet. So I mean, in the meantime, following me on Twitter or LinkedIn is probably just, you know, Rory Tyre. There's really nobody else with my name, so you probably find me. But yeah, I love. I, you know, I'm passionate about entrepreneurship through acquisition because so far it has been like a huge net positive for me and my family and I think, think I'm giving my girls just a different perspective on what's possible than I had growing up. And my parents are wonderful, but they weren't entrepreneurs and, and this is just, yeah, not something I either of them did. And so, you know, regardless of how this ends up, I'm gonna show my kids like this is something you can pursue. But yeah, Twitter LinkedIn, you can shoot me an email, but those, Twitter, LinkedIn are the best places to get a hold of me if you want to chat.
- [35:58]
John
Very cool. All right, guys, well, thank you for listening. If you like what you heard today, go ahead, leave us five star review wherever you listen as well as follow us at owned and operated.com Sign up for the newsletter, join the Facebook page. All of the 10,000 things you can do to interact with us. So appreciate y'all for listening and thank you, Roy, for coming on today.
- [36:17]
Rory Tyre
You're welcome, man. Good to talk with you.
- [36:19]
John
Awesome.